For the record ...
On 2:59 PM, Martin Mueller wrote:
>> Still, if we give up the goal of interoperability as a central, even
>> primary, goal of the TEI, then I see no reason:
>>
>> * to use it,
>> * for any institution to support it, or
>> * for any granting agency to recommend its use.
>>
>> Without a goal of interoperability, I might as well create my own tags
>> that won't force me to spend a lot of time looking for the appropriate
>> tag for the textual feature I wish to identify.
>>
>
> This puts the case as forcefully as I have seen it put. I wish the revised
> version of the Guidelines for the use of TEI in Libraries had taken a leaf
> from it. They are wishy-washy in that regard, and barely try. But if
> substantial interoperability is not a goal, why bother in the first place?
> Doug makes that point very forcefully.
Martin refers to *Best Practices for TEI in Libraries*, which is
gradually approaching public release. The canonical location for this
document and its ODDs is http://purl.oclc.org/NET/teiinlibraries , at
which you will find an old version of the text. Changes have been made
to the text since then in the ODD source in the repository where Syd
Bauman and I are working on it (
https://github.com/sydb/TEI-in-Libraries/ ), but neither of us has found
the time to make the necessary modifications to the odd2html stylesheet
in order to produce readable output. As soon as we do, I'll put up a
new version.
Martin refers to this paragraph in the section called "Standards and
Local Practice":
The goal of the TEI is interchange, not interoperability. While seamless
interoperability of texts created by different organizations is an
unobtainable goal, use of a common markup vocabulary and syntax greatly
aids interchange. Nevertheless, keep in mind that others—even within
your organization—may use your texts in the future for other uses than
you intended in your encoding.
Martin and I discussed this a few months ago, after which I changed "is
an unobtainable goal" to "is an elusive goal". Perhaps still too
wishy-washy for him, but I'm okay with it.